62 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
In the first place, it must be noted that Plebians were not slaves. They were freemen in as much as they enjoyed jus commercii or the right to acquire, hold and transfer property. Their disabilities consisted in the denial of political and social rights. In the second place, it must be noted that their disabilities were not permanent. There were two social disabilities from which they suffered. One arose from the interdict on intermarriage between them and the Patricians imposed by the Twelve Tables. [1] This disability was removed in B.C.
445 by the passing of the Canulenian Law which legalized intermarriage between Patricians and Plebians. The other disability was their ineligibility to hold the office of Pontiffs and Augurs in the Public Temples of Rome. This disability was removed by the Ogulnian Law passed in B.C. 300.
As to the political disabilities of the Plebians they had secured the right to vote in popular assemblies ( jus suffragii ) under the Constitution of Servius Tullius the Sixth King of Rome. The political disabilities which had remained unredressed were those which related to the holding of office. This too was removed in course of time after the Republic was established in B.C. 509. The first step taken in this direction was the appointment of Plebian Tribunes in B.C. 494; the Questorship was opened to them, formally in B.C. 421; actually in B.C. 409; the Consulship in B.C. 367; the curule-aedileship in B.C.
366; the dictatorship in B.C. 356; the Censorship in B.C 351; and the Praetorship in B.C. 336. The Hortensian Law enacted in B.C.
287 marked a complete triumph for the Plebians. By that law the resolutions of the Assembly of the tribes were to be directly and without modification, control or delay, binding upon the whole of the Roman people.
This marks a complete political fusion of Patricians and Plebians on terms of equality.
Not only were the Plebians placed on the same footing as to political capacity and social status with the Patricians but the road to nobility was also thrown open to them. In Roman society, birth and fortune were the two great sources of rank and personal distinction. But in addition to this, the office of Curule Magistracy was also a source of ennoblement to the holder thereof. Every citizen, whether Patrician or Plebian, who won his way to a Curule Magistracy, from that Edile upwards, acquired personal distinction, which was transmitted to his descendants, who formed a class called Nobiles, or
- It was older than the Twelve Tables. The Twelve Tables only recognized it.